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THE REAL MEANING OF SURRENDER.Have you ever felt like you wanted to “give up”?.Have you ever had a goal? A goal that you really, really, really wanted but the time was closing in + it looked like you wouldn’t reach that goal?.Have you ever felt like you failed?.I have. I have “failed” so many times, I could never go through them all in this little Instagram caption..I have failed in ways that would make you put your hand to your heart + cock your head + say “awwwww.. 😭😭.” I have failed in ways that would make your heart ache..But this is where surrender comes in..When we have an idea about what you really, really want + we think we understand how to get there + then it becomes apparent that the way we thought we would get there will not work; we can call that failure..Or..We can surrender..Surrender to the bigger plan..Surrender to the guidance being offered to us every moment..Surrender the attachment to “our way”.. + trust that there is another more beautiful way, if only we let go..“Letting go” + “surrendering” doesn’t mean to “give up”, in fact, I’ve done some of my hardest, most difficult work only after I’ve surrendered my ideas about the way things “SHOULD LOOK” or “SHOULD BE.”.When you truly surrender your path + your single perception of the what you think would be the greatest outcome then you O P E N yourself up to MORE possibilities. The things you could do in the moment expand. You are giving yourself more options..Surrendering doesn’t mean stopping + doing nothing + acquiescing to what’s happening.. it means asking “I believe in miracles.. so if there was ONE MORE THING I could do.. what would that be?”.And then letting go of the idea that you know the best way..Surrender today, my loves, AND keep going for what you want..I’m with you. 💗

Magic: I am a magnificent being in the process of becoming more magnificent.

This empowering truth runs through all the world’s great traditions. If you study what the founders + mystics of those traditions taught, you will find that they highlight our innate worth rather than reinforce our weakness. They celebrate our inner fire rather than focus on the threat of hell fire.

The truth is, at your core, you are GOLD. Anything you’ve done, failed at, built stories around is the MUD.

And just like mud covering up solid gold, the stories don’t change the value of the gold. It might make it hard to see at times. It might get confusing + messy + deep.. but the gold at your core doesn’t change.

This is a message to all women out there acting like you are anything less than a spark of the Divine.

This is a message for anyone who feels like they “can’t” do it.

This is a note to any woman out there equating her worth to her waistline or her thigh circumference.

This is a note to you.

To remind of who you are.

You are POWERFUL.

Act like it.

You are CAPABLE.

Act like it.

You have a heart that can transform deep pain and emotional devastation into MORE love.

Act like it.

You have a mind that knows the answer to any question in your heart.

Act like it.

You have a body that is alive; heart beating, lungs breathing, and the complicated systems beyond what we’ve even figured out, are more or less working.

Act like it.

You have a spirit is that is magnificent and came to this earth for a purpose. To learn and to love and know what it’s like to be human.

Act like it.

Remember, that you have a responsibility to treat your precious body well. Feed it healthy, wholesome food. Move it and feel it’s delight. Drink good quality water. Talk nicely to it. It’s made of stardust after all.

Remember, your heart beat is your home. No one else’s. Partners are lovely and comforting, but you’ve got all you need right in the center of your chest.

Remember that your mind is a tool to be used for the good of all, not to spin out on all the disadvantages and excuses and failures of your life.

Remember that your spirit, that unexplained phenomenon that you don’t have to “understand” but that you “know”, is a part of something bigger than you could ever imagine. Be with yourself.

The other day I was reading an email from a person in our tribe and they said "I just don't understand how those "super women" do it all!"

I know in this shiny, social media soaked culture we can feel overwhelmingly behind all the time. The comparison game is ON HIGH with most of us.

And I get it.. it can feel like we're always a few steps behind everyone else.. but let this email be your reminder.. every woman is a super woman and “doing it all” is a myth.

Sometimes we feel like we should be able to do it all.

We have this sense that “everyone else” is doing more than we are; and that we’ll somehow “fall behind” if we don’t keep going a thousand miles a minute.

Better “keep up”!

We have this idea that we should be able to eat “clean” all the time, workout (hard) every day, take care of our families, be chronically sleep deprived & still function well, be successful, make lots of money, have lots of things, have awesome relationships with our parents & have close knit circle of friends... the list goes on.

No wonder we all feel soooo tired.

Of course we can’t do all that.

News flash! No one does.

We can have EVERYTHING our hearts desire, but we’ve better take care of ourselves during the process of getting it, or else what’s the point?

The world needs the best version of you, you can be. The world needs your rested, cared for, and FULL self.

Self-care is not selfish; it’s one of the best things you can do for other people. Letting yourself rest and have downtime is a gift to yourself and others. When you give to yourself, others benefit.

I’m so over women feeling like they have to wear all the hats. Feeling like their dreams require them to sacrifice. Feeling that they need to do all the things and look good doing it.

We don’t.

There will always be phases of intensity when we talk about building dreams, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to let yourself ENJOY every moment of it.

So go ahead.Give into the pleasure of the moment.Relish an extra hour in bed; I promise the world won’t collapse and you won’t get fired.Go to that workout class even though you’ve got a to-do list a mile long.

One thing I just did: mark a day off on your calendar as “a personal day” and do whatever you want.

We all think we need more discipline, but what we really think when we think discipline is "willpower."

We think if only we had more willpower we would love ourselves more. We would stop eating sugar. We would go to the gym everyday. We would do more exciting things and have more exciting lives.

This is a lie.

You don’t need more willpower. You need more discipline.

Discipline requires you to decide what your values are and act on those values even when in the short term it isn’t exactly fun. Discipline comes after you’ve experienced the downfall of lack of discipline. Discipline requires wisdom and long term thinking.

Willpower is the idea that we can ‘will’ ourselves to do something. We can’t.

One the most important things I’ve ever heard is devotion and love will always outlive drive and motivation. And devotion requires the wisdom and repetition of discipline.

So how do we grow discipline?

One might argue that we grow discipline with willpower.

But I don’t see it that way at all. The idea that we have to “fight” ourselves in anyway to get what we want is just falling back into the old paradigm of “life is hard” and that we have to “work more” and “sacrifice” to “build something for ourselves.” The paradigm that the world is a difficult place to be. This is an old and tired way of thinking. It’s boring and it’s ran its course.

How we really build discipline is by committing to slowing down and asking ourselves meaningful questions.

To grow discipline we engage in mindfulness when we eat, when we talk, when we listen, when we live.

It’s simple. Just slow down. Watch what you’re actually doing. Let eating food be enough, don’t work while eating. Let walking to your car or to the next store be enough and don’t check your phone for the 100th time that day. Think about what you’re saying before you say it. Really listen to people when they talk.

We build discipline by slowing down and listening to what the soft animal of our body actual wants and doing that. It’s as simple as stopping the autopilot of life.

It’s so surface-level-attractive to speed up in life. To distract, escape, and avoid. But to live a life of intention and soul-led-purpose we’ve gotta slow down.

Slowing down doesn’t mean that you can’t get anything done. In fact, I’m willing to bet that you’ll probably get more done. But you will “lean” out your to do list. Activities that seemed like life or death may get dropped. You may find yourself engaging with different people or groups or even switching careers.

But don’t be afraid to slow down badly at first. Just give it a try. Notice how many times a day you check your phone just to fill space. Notice that you feel frantic most of the time. Notice that you literally don’t stop or take a deep breath all day.

Awareness starts to decondition. And it is the key to a mindful life. So start there. See what happens.

During this time of year there is a big emphasis on setting goals and “bettering” ourselves. Sayings like “new year, new you” are everywhere. People are setting aggressive money saving, weight loss, dietary, or workout goals. I’ve seen a lot of people on social media saying thing to the gist of.. “2018 was a terrible a year, but here I come 2019. I’m going to turn it all around.”

hmmm…

As much as I love goals and focusing on how to bring more intentional design to our lives, new years resolutions aren’t the way we successfully shift our lives.

So instead of engaging in something we know doesn’t work for most people, what can you do to actually make 2019 one of the best of your life?

Most of us have broken promises to ourselves much more than we have kept promises to ourselves. What would happen if you had a friend who said they would meet you for coffee at specific date and time and kept either no-showing to the date or making up last minute excuses? You probably wouldn’t trust them. Same goes with ourselves.

When we tell ourselves we’re going to loose weight or save money or change our diet or do more exciting things and we just continue to do the same things we’ve always done, we start to break trust with ourselves. We stop trusting ourselves.

Then when we set big goals that involve intensive changes to the status quo it’s only a few days or at most a few weeks before we break our promise and go back to our old ways.

Think about it this way..you’re not going to go on a week long trip to Mexico with your friend who keeps no-showing on you for coffee and you’re not going to trust yourself to eat “clean” and work out every day when you’re not even able to wake up an hour earlier each morning.

So what we need to do is build trust with ourselves in small ways. We need to go for the low hanging fruit. We need to make small changes that are relatively easy and build up from there. The daily habits. This isn’t a sexy proposition, as most people want to make big sweeping changes and see big sweeping results.. but big sweeping results are built from small, steady, consistent daily habits.

I don’t want to completely disregard goal setting, so I do strongly encourage you to set S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals for one, three and five years in the future. These an adjust and change as our lives and desires do, but we should always have a plan for where we’re headed if we want to live an intentional, consciously created life.

However, the most important thing to do during this time of year when we’ve got all the fresh, new year energy is to choose five daily habits you know would make you feel better right now, in this moment.

We don’t want to focus on what we want to change as that is heavy and brings into focus how far we’ve got to go. Not a very motivating thought. But we do want to think about what could we do right now that would make us feel better, right now. That feels doable and empowering. Then make those actions daily habits by committing each one for 30 days before adding the new one.

Here are some examples of daily habits I’ve used this method with.

Drink half your body weight in ounces (eg if you weight 200 pounds you would drink 100 ounces of water) in filtered water each day.

Consistently take my supplements.

Add green veggies to every meal

Meditate for 20 minutes each morning (this could be 5 minutes if you’re new to mindfulness).

Sweat each day

Spend one hour undistracted with your partner or kids in the evening

Stop work at 6pm

These daily habits are what is going to build a foundation upon which you trust yourself and keep your own promises to yourself.

So what are is the first daily habit you’re going to adopt this new year?

Well, that’s not totally true..I did nothing for anyone else. I only did exactly what I wanted to do; moment by moment. I gave myself all the freedom. On the night of December 23rd, I put my phone in airplane mode and didn’t turn it back off until the morning of the 3rd.

No texts.

No emails.

No social media.

No messages.

No way for anyone to get a hold of me.

So what did I actually do? I traveled to Sedona, Arizona and…

I went to a 75 minute hot yoga class every morning.

I hiked around 40 miles over the course of 9 days.

I went to a new years eve 3 hour chanting and meditation session with a bunch of strangers that all turned into good friends.

I got a 90-min facial, a 90-min massage and my nails done. All in the same day.

I met up with an old friend.

I watched a movie called “Call me by Your Name”.. it was really good, highly recommend it.

I slept in late.

I journaled and wrote about my dreams and aspirations.

I honed those dreamy, free-writings into accomplishable 1 year, 3 year and 5 year goals.

I broke the one year goals down into quarterly, monthly, weekly tasks, and even daily tasks.

I ate a lot of delicious food and chocolate and organic green juice.

I took about 5 long, hot baths

I went to a sound bath.

I went to an ecstatic dance class.

I mapped out my travel for 2019.

I saw and explored the grand canyon.

I hung out in an airport watching silly holiday movies.

I read two books.

I meditated for at least 40 minutes each day.

I gave myself the gift of doing exactly what I wanted. So here’s 4 truths I’ve learned from giving myself what I most needed and wanted.

Sometimes the best thing we can do for those around us is to give something to ourselves. Sacrifice can stunt those we think we’re helping. When we are true to ourselves, we help others be true to themselves.

Even if we run our own business and have no employees or support, or have a super demanding job, we can totally disconnect without the world falling apart if we decide it’s what we need. We are responsible for how our lives unfold. The choice for what happens next in our lives is always our own.

People will always take whatever you give, and be happy with it. So it’s more up to you to decide how much you want to give (see number 1) and know that it will always be just the right amount. It’s up to you to temper your own giving.

Our own self-care and self-honoring sets an example to anyone we come into contact with. Our own steadiness is our greatest gift to the ones around us. What we give and how we give can change the world—and we are always giving and teaching by our example. -or- How we live is our greatest gift to the world.

Sending you tidings of joy, love, and the deep knowledge that you are worthy of what you most want to give and receive in this world. The power is in your hands.

Step 1: Do something physical to get the blood moving. I love to do yoga because it feels delicious. For a home practice I love Yoga by Candace on youtube or Jennifer Pansa’s Earth Elements classes on YogiApproved.com.

Step 3: Take a cold as cold can be shower for 3-5 minutes with the shower water hitting you on the heart. This is obviously very shocking, but you’ll be surprised how amazing you feel afterwards. It’s also a powerful detoxifying practice as it act as a kind of water pressure cleaning of your capillaries as your blood is pumped to your extremities.

Step 4: Anoint yourself with oils. In Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine each person has a “dosha” or a constitution. For example, in Ayurvedic language I am a “pitta” dosha, or a fire constitution from Chinese medicine. Since I am fiery, I want to use oils that are “cooling.” Sesame oil is cooling, whereas coconut oil is warming. So people who fall into the air or earth doshas could use coconut oil, it’s better for me to use sesame oil on my body. Find out your dosha here.

I then apply this oil all over my body while massaging myself + telling my body how much I cherish it and how lovely it is. The gist here is rub yourself down with some oil while telling your body nice things.

The biggest thing about getting things done, staying organized, and focused is to the way you perceive time.

Do you see time as a precious resource?Do you see time as something that there is never enough of?

Or do you tend to feel like you can make time up later?

Are you a procrastinator or a doer?

Do you consistently underestimate how long things will take or overestimate them?

Know thyself, as they say, and it will be much easier to figure out what is at the bottom of your lack of focus or organization or struggle to meet the goals you set for yourself.

Did you know that if we work 40 hrs/week and sleep 8 hours per night we still have 72 hours/week of time? Seems like a lot right? So what is this obsession with having no time?

There is always a reason for EVERYTHING we do. Self sabotage? The sabotaging behavior is there for a reason. Instead of rallying against the behavior ask yourself what is that behavior giving you? Do you feel constantly unorganized? This is just resistance and an easy way to distract ourselves from our bigger work. Feeling unfocused or overwhelmed? It’s just a lack of priorities.

So the key to focus, organization and forward movement is always reevaluating, reflecting, and being aware of where your time is going and what stories you are telling yourself around it. So here’s the steps to getting organized you can do right now. **these steps are inspired by Ange Peter’s “Beautiful Life Lab”.

Write down three “stories” or “beliefs” you hold about time. This could be vague like “there is never enough time,” to specific like, “Having three kids means I have far less time than someone with one kid.” or “I don’t have time to meal plan because my job is super demanding.” or “I am more easily overwhelmed than others” These don’t necessarily have to be untrue, it’s just getting clear on what is going through your head when it comes to time.

Track your time by the half hour for at least three days. So for each half hour from when you wake up to when you go to sleep, write down what you did.

After you’ve tracked your time; total the amount of time you spent in these four categories: career, self care, relationships, personal development. You can also denote how much time you spent in the following categories: cleaning, exercise, family, driving, hobbies, sleeping, TV, eating/meal prep, social media, day dreaming.

When you’ve done this you’ve got a really good idea of where your time is leaking away. So take measures, set intentions to shift that. For example, if you spend way more time than you thought you did watching TV, you could move the TV out of the living room so you don’t have the temptation or set some sort of boundary on what you watch and stick to it.

Once you’ve taken off your plate the most time-leaky behaviors you’ll be way better set up to create the spaciousness and clarity you need to take aligned action and not be a slave to your time perception stories.

Good luck, loves!

For a chance to win an essential oils starter kit, post a picture of you doing your organization steps on instagram and tag me @revolutionarylifestyle.

Last week I wrote about the mindset of staying organized, managing your time, making time for the things you value most, and reaching your goals. This week let’s get into the tools I use for time management, goal setting and staying organized, and next week in the final piece of the series I’ll tie it all together.

Number one tool I use all day e’rrr day is google calendar. If you want to be more organized or are confused or at a loss about how to make more time for yourself and the things you value and you don’t have a calendar system, get one stat. It will create healthy boundaries around your time, plus take a lot of the decision fatigue out of your days, so you save your precious brain power for the important stuff. I love using the digital system because then it can sync with other peoples’ calendars, people can send me invites to meetings or appointments, and I can edit it from any of my devices; so it’s always available. Key here is using it religiously; for everything.

I know this may not be for everyone, but I schedule EVERYTHING. I schedule my morning meditation practice, my workouts, my coffee dates with friends, entering all my expenses into quickbooks, and even date nights with the hubs. It doesn’t sound sexy, but it works, and it’s the only way I manage to be relatively highly productive while also never feeling like I’m “too busy.”

Now, of course sometime life happens and my schedule doesn’t go as planned, but that is the exception; not the rule.

The next tool I use the most is trello. This is a relatively new tool for me (thanks to Cass of the The Wellness Rookie for encouraging me to try it out). I used to use google sheets in a very similar way to trello, but trello is for sure more aesthetically pleasing and fun to use.

Trello works as a project management software. One key to being able to take consistent action on big, hairy projects and goals, is breaking down the big stuff into small daily tasks. If you want to write a book, you gotta write the first paragraph and the the first chapter, so it’s easier for our brains to focus on the small achievable tasks. I like to take my big goals or projects and break them down in to 2 hour tasks.

Trello’s boards, lists, and cards enable you to organize and prioritize your projects in a fun, flexible and rewarding way. Trello also syncs on all your devices so you can also refer back to your projects no matter you are. Again, accessibility is key to actually using it. I also love that no matter when or where inspiration strikes I can always make notes in trello so that when I’m ready to sit down and work I have all my notes and ideas in one place. This is incredibly useful for staying organized, but still tapping into inspiration which isn’t something that comes on demand.

For example, let’s say you’re committed to starting a blog and building an online following. You’ve read that putting out consistent content is a big part of attracting readers and search engine optimization. So you decide that you will spend one hour writing a blog post every Tuesday at 10am. You’ve got all sorts of ideas! But then Tuesday at 10am rolls around your mind is totally blank. Nothing seems exciting to write about. Now, if you had been keeping a list of topics every time inspiration struck you could look over that list and start writing away, Trello is a place to keep all the to-do lists and organize tasks.

We can’t talk about organization and time management without talking about how to arm yourself against the onslaught of distractions that is our daily life. You cannot be focused, responsible with your time, and intentional if you don’t have some sort of policy around email, texting, social media, etc.

The tools I use to make sure I’m not spending lots of time just scrolling or replying to emails are called “screen time” on my phone and “stay focused” on the computer.

Screen time is a feature available on all iPhones. This feature allows you to set time limits for certain applications. So, for example, I set a 30 min time limit for facebook and instagram so once my 30 min is up for the day the app itself is blocked off. Stay focused works the same way for websites on your browser. You can get similar programs for android phones as well.

These are the main “tools” I use for intentional time management and organization.

Next week I’ll be back with Part 3: How I Stay Organized | Life Design.

I’ve been getting asked a lot lately about how I manage my time, stay organized, stay focused, and how I’ve created this lifestyle I have today which is location flexible, financially abundant, and completely by my own design. So I’ve been thinking about how to write this blog post in a way that is practical, helpful and concise, but of course.. I always have to start out with mindset.

Yes, I have a proclivity towards organization. My mind likes flow charts, lists, frameworks, and systems. I LOVE efficiency. I live to create systems that work for me and for others. It really does light me up. So don’t worry.. I’ll be getting into the nitty gritty in parts 2 and 3 over the next two weeks, but to start out I’ve got to lay some groundwork, which may not be as sexy, or as immediately gratifying, but is overwhelmingly important.

The longer I have my business (revolutionary lifestyle has been in existence now for almost 5 years!), the more confidence and assuredness I have in my value and the more I respect the work I do. The more confident and respectful I am towards myself, the more I can focus and value the effort I put into to projects, clients, partnerships, etc. And this is huge. Having respect for your time, your effort and your value; will get you further than any organizational system ever will. So if you don’t respect your own value, your own time, your own service, start there.

There are so many people who want to change their lives. They want to help people, change the world, have location flexibility, have more time, and donate to all their humanitarian passion projects. That is wonderful. I truly believe everyone in the world can have exactly what they want; if they put their mind to it and take inspired action.

But..the fact of the matter is you will always have to do things you don’t want to do when going for goals that are outside where you currently are. If you want to live a location flexible life and you don’t currently have location flexibility, you are going to have to change some things. If you want to eat intuitively; you’ll have to change they way you eat. This seems obvious, but people miss this fact all the time.

Nothing changes unless you do.

You absolutely have to put yourself out there if want to change your life significantly or create new habits or build some sort of income stream that you don’t already have. It’s going to be uncomfortable and awkward. You’ll absolutely fail at some things. You will absolutely have to expand what you think is possible. We hear and read these things, but then when we actually experience the growing pains of expansion; we feel like a failure, and quit.

But the difference between people that I see succeed and people I see struggling (and when I have taken on both of those roles myself) is that the people who succeed are completely willing to do the things they don’t want to do right now, to get to the place they want to be later. The people who succeed are actually excited about changing and the work involved.

Let me say this clearly…this isn’t about sacrifice. I don’t believe we ever have to sacrifice in a conventional sense; we’ve got WAY too much of that going on. No one wants to be a martyr and it ain’t a great way to live. But it does mean looking long and hard at how much we want the things we want and deciding clearly and consciously what we are willing to do to get it. Tradeoff is a better word. Are you willing to trade in some comfort now to be more expanded later?

I am. Hell yes, I am. What is the point of life, if not this?

My past self (the self that didn’t own a business or have a location flexible lifestyle) didn’t particularly like putting myself out there. She had a huge fear of rejection and was overwhelming skeptical and untrusting as a defense mechanism, to the point of cynicism (not a particularly good quality when you’re trying to build a business out of nothing). However, my current self (who has owned multiple profitable businesses and lives a completely location flexible lifestyle), loves sharing and being vulnerable and honest and sincere, and trusts people and sees that trustworthiness reflected back to me in my daily interactions with people.

So what allowed me to go from that past self to my current self?

A conscious decision to change the way I see the world, because in the world I was living in back then wasn’t one where twenty-somethings designed their lives.

I started changing what I did with my time. I spent time writing, reading, and learning. I stopped spending time drinking alcohol, complaining about the world, and partying.

I found people who had lives like the one I wanted and I took their advice, almost blindly. (I DID NOT take the advice of people who did not have lives like I wanted.. important to note.. if your parents aren’t living a life of design, they’re not going to give you good advice on how to create one.) Podcasts, coaches, mentors, I absorbed as much as I could, and I took their advice and acted on it.

This is the mindset of change. This always has to be the first part to being focused, organized, and managing your time well, because without it, you don’t know why you’re focusing, organizing yourself, or managing your time.

So figure out what the trade offs are and what you’re willing to trade in for the goal you want to achieve or the lifestyle you want.

Looking forward to continuing this exploration of time management, organization and focus next week with Part 2: How I Stay Organized | The Tools.

The feeling of fall is this delightfully cozy energy of turning inward.

It’s the warm sweaters, cups of tea or golden milk and early nights.

The time of year when I always feel the once-I-get home-I’m-not-leaving-again vibes.

Even if you’re not in the wintery north like me, I’m willing to bet you’re feeling the shift of energy.

The other day I was getting super close to this “fall” energy, basking in it, you could say. Just allowing myself to relish the secure feeling and the crisp air.

How sweet it is to curl up under a blanket and read.

How sweet it is to get into bed earlier.

The sound of wood crackling on the fire is one of the sweetest sounds.

There is a reason we call our loved ones “sweetie” and “honey”.. it’s because sweetness and this feeling of coming home are linked in some way. The flavor of sweetness is synonymous to that of safety.

In our primal brains if we have something sweet to eat we know we’re nourished.

One of the reasons I believe people crave sweets so prolifically these days is that our lives are lacking this calm and intimate sweetness of life. So we try to fill the void with physical, flavors of sweetness.

Our lack of emotional and life sweetness translates to a craving for the flavor of sweetness.

So in this perfect of time year, let’s bring ourselves and our loved ones a little more life-sweetness.

Some ideas include:

Sleeping in a little longer and going to bed a little earlier.

Curling up on the couch with a blanket to watch an old favorite movie.

Working hard is necessary, but there are plenty of people who work much harder than you or me and make much, much less money.

How do you explain that?

If we keep telling the same old tired “secrets to success” stories of how we worked harder than everyone else, we didn’t take “no” for an answer, or we stayed expertly focused, when other people were all over the place.. we’re perpetuating the narrative of “the harder you work; the more you deserve.”

Or “the more rejection you take, the more you deserve praise.”

Or ultimately, what I call the pain equals pleasure principle.

The more shit you take, the more enjoyment you deserve.

I call major BS.

If this is the way we live… when do we get to ENJOY our lives?

After we retire and we’ve forgotten how to relax and finally have free time but feel like we have no “purpose”?

After we’ve made millions of dollars and have severe adrenal fatigue, so we feel depressed and exhausted?

What about the people that work hard all their lives and have nothing to show for it? Do they just have to keep working hard forever?

This is not the world I choose to add to or live in.

In my world, ease gets me farther than struggle.

In my world, grace is more effective than mindless hustle.

In my world, wholesome, true enjoyment is always the main goal.

In my world, enjoying the process is much more important than the destination.

We can do hard things, but not for the end goal.. we do the hard things because that is how we grow and it is what is required of us.

It is subtle and paradoxical because there is absolutely “hard work” involved in changing an entire paradigm and creating a life you love hard things and all… it is a commitment to choosing placing value in a different place.

It requires discipline, no doubt, to shift your mindset and value your alignment with YOUR OWN truth over what society tells you.

But, our souls want badly to do our “work” and learn the lessons they came here to learn.

But the pain equals pleasure principle we all tend to operate under, doesn’t serve us in this purpose. It makes everything harder and keeps us slaves to our egos.

Believing that pain equals pleasure, makes us feel that we don’t deserve the goodness and ease of our aligned work.

True humility is the realization that conventionally validated success or any success for that matter has nothing to do with us and us “making” it, but it is the universe doing all things through us.We are simply an instrument.

This is bad news for the ego; but one of the most liberating and relieving truths for the soul.

You are not not responsible for anything except staying aligned with your own goodness and focusing on brining your soul-given purpose to each small task you are offered.

When you get out of your own way, and give up the idea that you could ever “make” anything happen, and start instead letting the universe create through you; miracles happen.

So stay humble and stop telling yourself you’ve got to work so damn hard.

Every single person on this earth is an instrument of God.

No one person is better than or more deserving of happiness than the other. And the amount you work is definitely not proportionate to how many blessings you get.

We are all equally blessed.

The moment you start to realize you’re not in control here, not only will things get insanely easier, you’ll also have a ton more fun.

As I’m writing this I am sitting by a stream in a camping area about an hour from my rural Montana home. No phone service. No internet. No sounds but the wind through the trees, a few birds chatting back and forth, and the stream rushing by.

I have come to crave this solitude; this feeling of nowhere to be and nothing to do. This feeling of total detachment from the buzz and hmmm of the electric world. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this.

If you know me at all, you know I’m a “go-getter.” I’m ambitious and direct. I know what I want. Clarity has never been something I struggled to find. I’m a black and white thinker. I know what’s right and wrong. Most of my adult life so far as revolved around traveling the world or working to travel or working while traveling.

Yet.. all of the sudden I feel the need to STOP. Be still. Just be. To be completely honest, it’s foreign. Sure, I love meditation. I truly believe that if all people took more time to contemplate and watch our thoughts, the world would be a much happier and healthier place.

But this desire for stillness, is more than just a routine morning quiet time. It’s like a part of me that was always there, but in the shadows has come out into the light and is all the sudden driving and all the other parts of me are getting motion sickness. The constant movement to stillness. The raw ambition to the relative apathy. The pure clarity to the grey area. This new driving force of stillness is making me feel like I don’t quite know myself.

None of this is bad. It’s a form of growth. I can tell, a deeper awakening to myself and my power is imminent. My body and higher self are calling on me to SLOW DOWN.

Listen.

Take rest.

“You’ll need your energy for what’s to come.”

A time of potential building and ripening.

So all this is to say.. if you feel the urge to slow down too, follow it. If you feel a little “stuck” “lost” or “uninspired”, there isn’t anything wrong with it. It’s part of our cyclical nature. We will always come back to the action. We will always come back to the desire to do. We contract and we expand. We have periods in our lives (sometimes very long periods) of creation and manifesting and periods of recuperating and stillness.

We all live and we all die.

The circle or the wave of life.

The struggle against this inevitable waning of life is what makes this aspect of life miserable.

When you go into a period of stillness, and instead of letting it offer you its insight, you fight and rally against it, you deny it and try to keep pushing, is when you elongate that period or make it more painful than it has to be.

When you build the story of “failure” or “lazy” around a simple need for stillness, you rob yourself of the lessons it’s trying to teach you and elongate the whole process.

If I have learned anything from my relatively short, but very full life it’s that the more we’re able to listen to our internal urges, those little nagging feelings, the “pings” of intuition, the more we’re following the path of least resistance. The path that will easily and fully lead us to where we need to go, what we need to learn, and who we need to be.

Sometimes those nagging feelings aren’t easy to follow. I can tell you firsthand, that my ego DOES NOT WANT to slow down. It wants to go. It wants to accomplish. It wants to MAKE IT HAPPEN. It wants to check the things off the list. It wants to get recognition and praise. So for me to follow this urge to come out to this place in nature with all distractions and connections severed, took a lot of higher-self-worth and trust. It’s a muscle you build over time and with practice.

You start listening to the little nudges first. You take a different road on your drive home from work because you get the urge. You call that friend that keeps popping into your mind. You sit at the base of the tree in the park because it keeps grabbing your attention.

Then the smaller things turn into bigger things. You get the clear urge to go to Italy, so you plan a trip there. You get the clear urge to talk to your partner about that thing you’ve been hiding from him or her.

This is the way to start to tap into this path of living our lives in the path of the least resistance. A flip to following “my will” to “the higher will.” The greater good. The higher purpose. Getting our directions from the thing that makes our hearts beat and tells the flowers when to open. The great mystery.

Mystery doesn’t give you a play by play. A step by step process. It gives you an urge. It gives you a ping. It gives you a nagging feeling.

The title of this blog post has me a little nervous of what people will think of me…. just kidding. ; )

As women we have, in general, become very disconnected from our vaginas.

In my ever-expanding experience, and consequentially, my world view the physical is ALWAYS, always connected to the emotional, the spiritual and the mental. In a society that tends to restrict acceptable “femininity” to a small and confusing box, it’s no wonder that the physical representation of female power, feminine anatomy, is also experiencing a lot of restriction, shame, pain, and ultimately lack of true care.

Our womanly power sources deserve better care, and I ain’t talking about Brazilian bikini waxes or labia reduction surgeries (which, by the way, is the fastest growing type of cosmetic surgery..WTF??). Brazilian waxes and labiaplasty are externally focused on ideas of what is “attractive” or “desirable” and have nothing to do with how we feel about our own bodies; when we’re alone. I’m talking about ancient methods of balancing our hormones, bringing non-judgmental love, attention and focus to this place in our bodies that holds so much intuitive power.

This area of our body is also the home of the root chakra, the energy center that deals with a sense of belonging and safety in the world. When it’s out of balance we can feel anxious, worrisome, unsafe, develop constipation, back pain, or eating disorders.

To tap into the unbridled feminine power we’ve got to get super comfortable with and take really good care of our vaginas.

I’ve got a lot to say about this subject, but to ease everyone into this I’ve decided to go over two practices that can help us care for our vagina and womb-space.

Vagina Steaming

Vaginal (aka yoni, the sanskrit word for vagina) steaming is an ancient practice that has been used for millennia in the eastern world. It is a practice in which a woman allows the warmth of herbal steam to permeate the exterior of her vagina. Respected by healers around the globe, vaginal steaming is an opportunity to reconnect with your body and utilize the wisdom of plant medicine to heal your cycle.

Place the vase in a clean toilet, remove all pants and underwear (or wear a skirt with no undies) so that you can place your vagina over the steam.

Then wrap your lower half in a blanket and enjoy the steam.

You want to sit for at least 20 minutes, closer to 40 minutes is ideal. Use this time to meditate, listen to music, or journal. Try not to read or get on your phone. Use this time to connect to your womb-space and secrets it has to tell you.

2. Vaginal Egg Wearing

A vaginal egg, jade egg, yoni egg or love egg – are names for a beautiful semiprecious stone carved into an egg shape and polished to be worn inside the vagina.

Female practice that involves using stone eggs is estimated to be 5000 years old. Eggs carved out of jade were used by empresses and concubines of the royal palace in China to access sexual power, awaken sensuality and maintain amazing health into their old age. For a very long time this secret practice was only available to members of the royal family, and up until recently – to select Taoist practitioners.

I got a message from an audience member of mine talking about her struggle with disordered eating.

She asked me why her mind was so irrational. Why when she knew she should stop restricting, she just couldn’t get the self-negating thoughts about her looks & how much/what she was eating, to go away.

She asked, "How come my mind is so irrational? When will these thoughts stop?"

The not so sexy answer is.. the thoughts won’t stop, but you are SO much more than your thoughts. And as you put your thoughts/feelings back in their place (in the backseat, not the driver’s seat)...they start to matter less & less.

The goal can never be to get the thoughts to go away or stop, the goal always have to be disengaging from the thoughts & identifying with the part of you that is soo much more. That space in your heart that is full of mystery & expansion & knowing.

Your mind/thoughts/feelings can be your servants. Not your master. Identifying with & remembering the master in you is the work.. as you do that the thoughts relax & go where they should, toward blessing the world around you.

Our minds were not made to be constantly coming up with the worst case scenario. But unfortunately most of us have put them in charge of our lives & that is WAY out of our mind’s job description, so that’s how it copes.

The worry & the fear. The mental anguish. The irrational thoughts. Guard constantly up. Always looking for the next blow.

Let it go. Let the part of you that knows come forward & lead. Those pesky little thoughts will go from your worst enemy to your best friend when released from their unwarranted responsibility of keeping you safe.

As we decide to stop identifying with our mind/thoughts/feelings we discover the master quietly waiting in the background, in the stillness of our own hearts.

Here is an instructional post for you and me about how to pull yourself out of a funk. (this is for me to refer back to as well).

1. Decide to change your state. Notice that you are in a low vibe, frustrated, sad or angry state, then take your power back and decide to move into action to change your state. You can’t get to feeling good by doing more of something that is making you frustrated.

2. Drink at least 20 ounces of warmish water. Add one drop grapefruit essential oil (ONLY with doTERRA essential oils, you CANNOT ingest other oils) to give you that oomph of metabolism boost.

4. Draw about 10 circles of cheer blend in the palm of your hand and run it through your hair. Breathe this juice in too - your brain will know what to do.

5. Get outside and get your barefoot on the ground. Find some plants to “talk” with and let them know how glad you are they are there.

6. Call a friend or your mom.

7. Help a friend or acquaintance with something they are feeling stuck in. Or simply do something nice for someone else. It is scientifically proven that helping people makes us feel better.

8. Send a few notes of gratitude to people who you haven’t talked to in awhile. Comment something nice and heartfelt on a friend’s post on social media.

9. Journal about what you are most excited about doing in the next couple months. Use some grapefruit + rosemary oil in the diffuser to help with a loving transition. Journal prompt: How can what I’m struggling with be made easy? What are some creative ways I can get what I need to get done in a way that is fun and feels good.

These 9 steps are guaranteed to get you in a better mood in no time.💪🏼

Wanna get on the dōTERRA oils train to get out of your funky mindset & be more productive?

This past week I reached a personal business goal of mine that I have been putting a lot energy & intention towards for a very long time.

A lot of working on weekends, taking trips away from my family, not taking part in social events, later work nights, longer days, sacrificing the pleasure of now for the pleasure of the long term.. all culminating this month.

There is something so incredibly satisfying about setting a goal and accomplishing it.

The intention is set. The decision is made. The challenge is accepted. The work begins. Energy is channeled toward the desired outcome.

Sometimes a goal comes more easily than we expected.

Most the time we take a few wrong turns on the way. We might go backwards for a bit. We might lose track of the end goal in the details of getting there. A lot of times we are required to readjust the goal in one way or another. Change our expectations. Make exceptions.

But if we continue to keep moving forward and train our mind to latch on to only love, we will always, eventually, make it to where we are supposed to, in perfect time.

After we reach the goal, we feel accomplished, maybe even overjoyed.

It’s in that space that I am now.

In the past I would (and I think a lot of people tend to do this as well) immediately move on to the next “bigger” and “better” goal. Or find the reasons why the goal I reached wasn’t really such an accomplishment, and play it down. I would rain on my own parade by immediately demanding more from myself. Comparing myself to others who had reached more “impressive” goals; downplaying all the joy.

But now, I choose to stop in the midst of this celebration of myself.

I choose to really revel in the fulfillment.

I choose to congratulate and love on the people who ran with me and made it possible (I would never pretend that I reach my goals on my own).

I choose to see myself and my people; victorious.

To be still and create space around the feeling of jubilant satisfaction of truly creating something meaningful, and get really, really familiar with this feeling. Because I plan on having a lot more of it.

Part of the reason people can get so downtrodden, ambivalent, and lukewarm when it comes to the goals they set for themselves is that they have never actually let themselves FEEL how good it feels to create. They don't celebrate themselves.

That is one of the MOST motivating feelings ever.

Brene Brown says that joy is the most vulnerable of emotions. And it IS! If you really let yourself be truly joyful, the threat of you getting blindsided is greater. The part of ourselves that is protecting us from judgement, pain, and disconnection might feel that joy is actually something that needs to be tempered.

So we end up hedging our joy with an edge of down play. We temper our sunny celebration with a hint of grey skepticism. It makes a weird kind of sense. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

So, today I choose to really & deeply experience this win of mine.

I choose to celebrate.

I choose to remember what it feels like to feel really, really satisfied.